British boxer Ricky Hatton has revealed that he came out of retirement to amend the end to his boxing career.
The Manchester fighter enjoyed a successful tenure in the ring until suffering defeats at the hands of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao towards the end of his career.
The 34-year-old will fight Ukrainian Vyacheslav Senchenko later this month, and Hatton admits that he felt like a failure after the way he left the sport the first time around.
"People are saying – you had a good career, Ricky, you don't need to be ashamed of it because you got beat by Mayweather and Pacquiao. People say – Ricky you're a legend. But I feel a failure because of what I did in that time gap [after his retirement]," Hatton told The Telegraph.
"That's why I came back. People used to look at me and say, 'Ricky, good kid, no airs, no graces, not flash, what you see is what you get, and what a fighter.' That's how they used to look at me.
"Call me paranoid, but I was thinking, how are they looking at me now? Fat bloke, used to be world champion? That's what the fellah on my shoulder was telling me."
Hatton squares off against Senchenko on November 24.
Matt Cotton
